How Does Falling in Love with ‘YOU’ lead to Authentic Love?

How many of you are genuinely ‘in love with yourself?’ How many of you can say that you are so in love with yourself and with your life as it is that just the ‘pure joy of living’ emanates from deep within the core of your essential or true self? Or do you relate ‘being in love with yourself’ with only self-care?

To be in love with one’s self goes beyond the egotistical need to be self-absorbed, where the focus is only on the egoic self or the ‘I.’ This kind of love is purely concerned with survival and competition. Although self-care is a very important aspect and by product of self-love, where you prioritize time to nurture your needs no matter how busy your schedule is, as for instance, in getting a massage or going for a walk, or lighting up candles and having a nice soak in the bath tub, or making sure to eat nutritious foods and exercising or taking a vacation, or buying yourself something nice to reward yourself for the hard work you have put in on a project, to be truly in love with yourself, goes beyond all of these.

When you are truly in love with yourself, you are in the space of accessing and connecting with your true and authentic self, which resides in the infinite and sacred space within you. Connecting with your inner self attunes you to your inner voice, the voice that empowers you into making choices that honor your authentic self. The love that emanates from within this space is all-encompassing; it is free from fear, anger, irritation, hatred, judgment and criticism. Loving yourself authentically demands that you love and accept the totality of ‘who you are.’ If you cannot love the positive and the not so positive aspects of yourself, it is not possible to love and accept another as they are.

Authentic love embraces self-acceptance of every aspect of one’s self and of others as they are. How you treat yourself is exactly how others are going to treat you because the relationship you have with another person mirrors the relationship you have with yourself. If you are unforgiving, critical and hard on yourself, you will project what is within you onto others and will inevitably invite the same kind of energy from others: you will repeatedly encounter people who are less tolerant of your weaknesses or failures. But when you love, accept and honor yourself, you invite loving and accepting people into your life.

When you fall in love with the totality of who you are, the power of this authentic love acts as a trajectory for loving others in the same authentic way, which allows for more enriching and fulfilling relationships. Authentic love is therefore about connecting with your true inner self. It is about allowing your inner light to shine and to generate a joy-filled radiance that attracts a deep and powerful connection with other human beings.

So, fall in love with ‘YOU’ and the world will be a much brighter place!

Sasha Samy (c) 2013
Excerpted in parts from “Shadow To Light.”